Five years ago, DJI paired its super-stable drone cameras with a postage-stamp-size screen to create the Osmo Pocket, a tiny vlogger cam. It was neat, and its successor had a handful of key improvements.
But the new Osmo Pocket 3, announced and shipping today, has more than a handful.
While the baby steadicam now starts at $519 — a huge hike over its $349 predecessors — it’s got a way larger sensor, way larger touchscreen, faster autofocus, far faster charging, more battery life, built-in wireless, built-in joystick, a third microphone, and a nifty rotating screen that satisfyingly clicks into portrait or landscape while automatically switching your filming aspect ratio.
I haven’t gone out on a real shoot with the Osmo Pocket 3 yet, I’m sorry to say, but I can already see ways it would beat strapping my smartphone to a standalone gimbal.
First, that sensor — it’s a one-inch type CMOS sensor, which should be nearly 3x larger than the 1/1.7-inch sensor in the Pocket 2 and nearly 4x larger than the original 1/2.3-inch chip. It shoots up to 4K/120 slow-mo video as well as 1080p at 240 frames per second. Also, it has “full-pixel” continuous autofocus, which I’m assuming means every single pixel can be used as a focusing pixel — all I know for sure is that it felt faster than my old iPhone.
Meanwhile, the screen is 4.7 times larger than the old postage stamps — it’s a two-inch OLED with a that can show 100 percent of the P3 color gamut. It’s clear, crisp, colorful, and big enough to tap and swipe on controls, many of which display helpful reminders about how they work. At 700 nits, it should be bright enough for outdoor use, too.
And if you want to use your phone’s screen instead, you no longer have to buy a special wireless handle module to make remote monitoring work! Where the Osmo Pocket and Pocket 2 were designed so modularly you’d need to click in a joystick or a phone adapter, both a bigger joystick and Wi-Fi are built right into the Pocket 3 — including support for DJI’s wireless clip-on microphone.
There is still some modularity this time, though. There’s a $49 wide-angle lens that magnetically snaps onto the existing one; the $519 basic kit comes with a basic extension that adds a 1/4-inch tripod mount thread and redirects the USB-C charging port; and there’s a longer $69 battery handle that extends battery life by up to 70 percent and adds the same 1/4-inch mount on the bottom.
The $669 Creator Combo kit comes with all of those, plus the wireless microphone, windscreen and magnetic clip, and a mini tripod attachment. There’s also a magnetic ND filter…